The Lord’s Day Evening
August 22, 2010
Romans 1:16-17
“The Power of the Gospel: For the
World”
(Yes, It’s Missions Sunday; It’s Always Missions Sunday!)
Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas
Now turn with me if you would to Paul’s letter to the Romans and our text is a
very familiar one this evening in chapter 1 and verses 16 and 17.
This is the penultimate study in a series that we’ve been engaged in all
summer on the “Gospel-Centered Life.”
They’ll be one more next Lord’s Day evening and then two weeks from now
we’ll revert back to the books of Samuel and pick up just where we left off in
the second chapter of 2 Samuel and the life of David.
That will be in two week’s time.
But tonight we want to focus our thoughts on this very well-known text.
Before I read it let’s look to God in prayer.
Father again we come before You
asking for a blessing, for an out-pouring of Your Spirit, in acknowledgment that
without You we can do nothing. So
come, O Lord, and grant us illumination as we read this portion of Scripture.
We ask it in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Hear the words of God:
“For I am not ashamed
of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as
it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
Amen. May God bless to us that
reading of His holy and inerrant Word.
Paul in this letter has just greeted Christians in
Now Martin Luther, the German reformer, in 1545 – he was to die in 1546; this is
at the end of his life – he is writing a preface to a publication of his Latin
works. And as he thinks about this
preface he’s thinking back over the twenty-five years or so of how God has used
him, employed him, in changing the face of
And as he begins to write this preface, he reminds himself and his readers that
it all began in this chapter and with these verses.
Because as Martin Luther read these verses – “I am not ashamed of the
Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God,” or as Luther would have read it in his
Latin Bible, “the justice of God.”
And he writes in that preface he came to hate the righteousness of God because
the righteousness of God for Martin Luther was something that condemned him.
No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, no matter what
deprivations he went through, no matter what self-denial he engaged in, the
righteousness of God always condemned him.
And he says, “I began to hate,” those are his words, “I began to hate the
righteousness of God until” – until he saw for the first time that the
righteousness that God demands is a righteousness He provides in the Gospel.
And when he saw that he says, “It was like the opening of the gates of
paradise.” It was this text.
Now this text is a summary of the entire epistle to the Romans.
You can summarize the entire epistle to the Romans with this text.
Cicero, the rhetorician, the man who invented, I suppose, the idea that every
speech, every address should have a main point and that you should be able to
distill it all into one crisp point, the whole thing.
Well you could do that with Romans just using this text, that in the
Gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”
That’s what Romans is all about.
Now four things I want us to see because he tells us he’s not ashamed of the
Gospel. He’s not ashamed of the
Gospel.
I. The Gospel is the saving power of God.
And he’s not ashamed of the Gospel first of all because it is the saving power
of God. It is the saving power of
God. Now, if you did, in Paul’s
time, word association – you know, you say “black” and you say “white.”
But in Paul’s time if you said “black” they’d say “white.”
If you said “horse” they’d say “chariot.”
If you said “power” they’d say “
And as he writes to
II. The Gospel has universal significance.
The second reason he gives as to why he’s not ashamed of this Gospel – if the
first reason is it’s the saving power of God, the second reason is that it comes
with universal significance. It is the power of God, he says, “to the Jew first
and also to the Greek” or to the barbarian – “to the Jew first.”
Now there’s a somewhat academic discussion whether Paul means that first
of all the Gospel ought to be taken to the Jews first and still today whether
the Gospel should be taken to the Jews first, or whether he’s simply reflecting
on the fact that the Gospel came to the Jews first.
And Paul’s way from Acts 9 all the way through Acts was, you remember, to
go first to where the Jews were, to the synagogue, to where the God-fearers were
gathered together. But it becomes
clear in the Acts of the Apostles as the Gospel spreads from
You know, if you were to ask me, “What is the issue that’s perhaps the most
important issue today in the Christian church?”
One of them would have to be pluralism, the idea that’s abroad, and it’s
everywhere, that some people can be saved by Christianity and some people can be
saved by something else. You know,
just find your own way. And this
Gospel says there’s only one way.
This Gospel is for everybody. In
other words, turn it around. The
only way that a Jew or a Gentile can find salvation is through this Gospel, this
powerful Gospel. Whether you’re
young or old, if you’re a covenant child you need this Gospel.
Only this Gospel is going to save you.
The fact that you’re a covenant child is not going to save you.
It puts you in a special place, it puts you in a place of great
privilege, but it doesn’t save you.
You need this Gospel.
No matter what your ethnicity, no matter what the color of your skin, no matter
what your social background, no matter what your education, no matter what
economic level you live in, this is a Gospel for the whole world.
I’m not ashamed of this Gospel because it comes with universal
significance. You know there’s the
person, and we think, “This person is so hard to reach.”
You know they may have great intellect and they may speak on a level we
can barely understand, and we say to ourselves, “This person is so hard to
reach,” but I’m telling you, this is the Gospel that will save them, this
Gospel.
III. The Gospel reveals the righteousness of God.
And then in the third place, Paul says not only is he not ashamed of this Gospel
because it is the power of God unto salvation, not only because this Gospel
comes with universal significance, but in the third place, he’s not ashamed of
this Gospel because it reveals the righteousness of God.
It reveals the righteousness of God.
Verse 17 – “In it” in the Gospel, this powerful Gospel that’s relevant
for everybody, in this Gospel “the righteousness of God is revealed.”
What is the righteousness of God?
Well first of all it’s a characteristic of God.
God is righteous. God is
absolutely faithful to His character.
He is absolutely faithful to pursuing His honor and His glory.
He’s righteous. He’s
righteous in the way He deals with us.
He makes covenants and manifests that righteousness which is His in
response to whether we are rightly related to Him in covenant.
He’s righteous.
If we are unrighteous, He reveals Himself as righteous in judgment, in
condemnation. That’s what Luther
saw, that the righteousness of God condemned him.
God was righteous but he was unrighteous.
But to those who are rightly related to Him in covenant, who have
believed on the terms of that covenant which say, “If you believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ you will be saved,” God is righteous to that.
He holds Himself to that. He
is faithful to that, that if you believe on Jesus He will love you and bless you
and commune with you and make promises to you.
He’s righteous.
So the issue is, are we in a right relationship with Him?
That’s the issue. And the
answer is, by nature we are not. By
nature we are in Adam. By nature we are sinners.
That’s what Paul is going to take the next two and a half chapters to
expound, that there is none righteous.
There is none righteous. He’s
not talking about people who are locked up in prison.
He’s not talking about murders and rapists.
He’s talking about everybody.
He’s talking about you and me.
“There is none righteous, no not one, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God.” So how can we be made
right with God then? And the answer
is in the Gospel. God is wholly
righteous and He provides that righteousness which we need and He provides it
through faith in Jesus Christ because as he explains elsewhere, He made Him the
righteous one. “He made Him to be
sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be reckoned the righteousness of God
in Him.” He made Him to be sin in
order that we might be reckoned righteous.
That’s
the Gospel.
That’s the good news.
That though we are all sinners, though we are all unrighteous, though, as he
goes on to say in verse 18, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all unrighteousness,” in Christ, hiding in Christ, sheltering in Christ, looking
to Jesus, His impeccable righteousness is credited to our account and our
unrighteousness is credited to His account.
He, He experiences the wrath of God that we might be forgiven.
That’s the Gospel. That’s the
beauty, that’s the simplicity of the Gospel.
It’s not by our works; it’s by Jesus’ works.
It’s by the perfect obedience of Jesus.
Throughout the whole course of His life and in His giving of Himself upon
the cross as our sin-bearer and substitute, yes, God is righteous.
Yes, we are unrighteous. Yes,
He condemns us righteously, but in the Gospel, in the Gospel there is good news.
God in His grace has solved the final problem.
How?
How does that righteous which is Jesus’ righteousness, which is God’s
righteousness, becomes my righteousness?
Well look at the text. “In it the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.”
It begins by faith; it continues by faith.
“As it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
It’s faith. What is faith?
Forsaking all, I take Him.
F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking all, I take
Him. What a Gospel for you tonight,
whoever you are, whatever your background, whatever you’ve done, however great
your sins may be. For you, there’s a
Gospel for you, there’s good news for you, that Jesus has died, that Jesus has
paid the penalty, that Jesus has borne our sin and He has risen from the dead
and He’s sitting gloriously and triumphantly at the right hand of God.
And all you need to do it believe.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
That’s the Gospel.
I’m not ashamed of this Gospel. I’m
not ashamed of it because it’s the power of God unto salvation and I’m not
ashamed of it because it’s applicable to everybody.
I’m not ashamed because in it, the righteousness of God is revealed.
The way of salvation is revealed – how that righteousness becomes my
righteousness. And fourthly, he’s
not ashamed of this Gospel because, as he says right at the end, it’s confirmed
by the Scriptures. “As it is
written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
Habakkuk 2:4 – he’s quoting that from the Bible of Paul’s time, the Old
Testament. Isn’t that great?
Where does he find the Gospel message?
He finds it in Habakkuk. He
finds it in the Old Testament. This
is not a Gospel only for New Testament believers.
This is a Gospel for Old Testament as well as New Testament believers.
There’s only one way of salvation and it’s by faith alone in Jesus Christ
alone.
That’s what folk say on a Tuesday evening when they gather together with the
world. The nations of the world
gather together here at First Pres. on a Tuesday evening.
And many of you are involved in that and that’s the good news.
That’s the Gospel. And you’re
not ashamed to say to whoever they may be, “This Gospel is for you.
No matter who you are, no matter where you’ve come from, no matter what
you’ve done, this Gospel is for you.
This is the way of salvation.
There’s power in this Gospel. It’s
God’s power. It’s a power that
transforms.”
Where would you be tonight if this Gospel hadn’t come and impacted your hearts
and your life? Where would you be
tonight? As you think back over the
last decade or twenty or thirty or forty or fifty years, where would all those
years have been wasted if the Gospel hadn’t come and changed you, the power of
God hadn’t come and changed you? And
it can do that tonight. It can do
that this coming Tuesday.
Brister Ware gave me a photograph. I
will leave it down here somewhere at the end.
You know, Brister and Marian go on these expeditions on trains almost
every year. This one is a photograph
of a grave. It’s very, very moving.
He knew I’d like it. It’s a
man or maybe a woman by the name of Clones in
Father we thank You for a sweet
and powerful Gospel that Jesus died in our room and stead and bore our sins in
His own body upon the tree. We come
again tonight and lay hold on Jesus and call Him “mine.”
Grant Your blessing. Rescue
the perishing. For those perhaps
tonight who are here who are still outside of Christ, bring them by Your Spirit
to an end of themselves and that they might lay hold on Jesus saying, “Nothing
in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling,” for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
Please stand. Receive the Lord’s
benediction. The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with you all.
©
First Presbyterian Church,
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